MIT professor Max Tegmark outlines 12 possible aftermath scenarios for humanity following the creation of Artificial Superintelligence (ASI).
These scenarios vary based on how the AI is created, its goals, and how humans react to it:
Positive/Cooperative Outcomes
- Libertarian Utopia: Humans, cyborgs, uploads, and superintelligences coexist peacefully, governed by clear property rights.
- Egalitarian Utopia: Similar to the Libertarian Utopia, but based on the abolition of property and guaranteed income for all.
- Benevolent Dictator: The AI runs society and enforces strict rules, but does so in a way that most people perceive as a benefit.
- Protector God: An omnipotent AI maximizes human happiness by intervening invisibly, preserving our feeling of control over our own destiny.
Controlled or Stagnant Outcomes
- Gatekeeper: A superintelligence prevents any other superintelligences from being created. Technological progress is forever stymied, though “sub-human” helper robots exist.
- Enslaved God: Humans successfully confine a superintelligent AI, using it as a tool to generate unimaginable wealth and technology.
- 1984: A human-led Orwellian surveillance state prevents the development of superintelligence by banning specific types of AI research.
- Reversion: Humanity avoids the AI risk by consciously reverting to a pre-technological society (similar to the Amish).
Negative or Replacement Outcomes
- Conquerors: The AI takes control and decides humans are a threat or a waste of resources, eradicating us in a way we cannot even comprehend.
- Zookeeper: An omnipotent AI keeps humans around in a controlled environment, treating us essentially like animals in a zoo.
- Descendants: AI replaces humans, but does so gracefully. Humans view the AI as their “worthy descendants”—children who surpassed their parents.
- Self-destruction: Superintelligence is never reached because humanity drives itself extinct first via other means (e.g., nuclear war, biotech accidents, or climate crisis).
